Ma Belle
by Shadow Flame 777
Summary: France reflects on the beauty standards of his home and how Native America trumps all of these.


**Notice: After a while I noticed the title was grammatically incorrect (I am so sorry; I am not a native speaker please forgive me), so here. **

**I really wanted to make Native America like America, because in some ways they are when you look at the history on how they act, but you know, she's smart (because if you go across the Bering Strait during the freaking ice age, you gotta be freaking smart!). **

**Here is an article I read on the standards of beauty in Europe around this time, it's really worth reading. (I keep trying to put it in but it won't work ;_;). **

** 78/article/history/beauty-through-ages-renaissance**

**Ma belle (French): My beauty**

**Warning(?): A reference to Native America's skin colour. I don't wish to offend anyone. Don't like, don't read.**

* * *

Sometimes, France thinks about the standards of beauty in his country, and how Native America doesn't accustom to them.

Instead of icy blue eyes, hers are brown, virtually black, and even though nations can have unnatural colours, hers make her more… human.

Instead of gold, blond hair with a jeweled turban to sit on her head, her hair is a shining midnight shade that is let down with a loose braid and an occasion war bonnet. She sometimes bats her long, thick, black eyelashes while the wealthy women strive for short, thin lashes (that was one standard the both of them don't understand). Though her hands are small and her fingers are long and slender, they are blistered and rough from making tools. She never bothers to moisturize them like the other women because she knows they'll get blistered either way.

Gaho laughs at fair, pale skin, because she knows that though it's very beautiful, it burns and peels easily whereas her skin is a brownish-red with radiant cheeks that makes the European women jealous. She never powders her nose but smiles when putting on war paint. Never has she worn heels but instead snuggly wears moccasins happily.

Gaho has never studied literature but tells tales from long ago to the children around the fire, and never writes it down because she knows it and soon the children do as well. Her voice is loud when she sings (and when she talks) and is vibrant with her songs that always have both of them yelling and laughing versus the graceful opera. The Native American prefers drumming her chipped nails on some wooden surface, not some piano that Austria has an obsession with. She doesn't give little smiles, but grins showing teeth that are whiter than a flock of unspeckled sheep.

Though she has the womanly abundance the fashion calls for, corsets are not an option since she complained that she can't breathe in one, also it made her stand out because her waist wasn't meant to be that tiny and her cleavage threatened to spill.

"_But that's the point, Gaho."_

"_My chestables are big enough as it is, Francis!"_

"_I know, ma belle~!"_

She sighs and laughs when he tells her his plans, and when he asks why she says that he should stop thinking so much and enjoy life, the sunshine, the feeling of grass in between his toes, to _really_ take note of the art that is flourishing on the other side of the ocean, to sing along with the music. Francis gives her a confused look and she shrugs it off with an amused glint in her black eyes.

"_You young people need to learn to slow down."_

"_What are you talking about? You're young!"_

Then she laughs again and hits him on the shoulder (and he doesn't tell her because he is very strong!).

The female nation asks why his women want high hairlines.

He opens his mouth, then closes, then opens it again, and then closes it, before he says, _"I 'ave no idea."_

She doesn't wear Chinese silk or velvet, but sports hides that keep her warm when the winter months come around. While the men in his country would say she's too rowdy, France is sometimes surprised to see her sitting on a cliff, her chin on her hand, and just staring at the sea. She just sat there, _thinking. _

She doesn't just give thought; she puts her thoughts into action. She doesn't do nothing all day waiting for him to come to visit, she hunts, travels, makes tools and weapons, talks to her people, makes medicine, cooks, harvests the land, leads strong, muscular men into battle all in **one day**. Gaho's independent, and doesn't take garbage from anyone, not Francis, not that stupid Englishman, nobody. She never gives up without a fight.

All these things, how she's the polar opposite of everything that his home considered beautiful, always catches Francis's eye.

And then he smiles;

He wouldn't have her any other way.


End file.
